GLENDALE, Ariz.—Hanley Ramirez sits in a corner locker, joking and laughing with Juan Uribe, who's in the next locker over. Ramirez puts his phone down, fiddles with gadgets in the locker and takes off his spikes as this happens.

This would be normal during the days of spring training, except this isn’t Ramirez’s locker. Ramirez, one of the alpha-male personalities in the Los Angeles Dodgers' clubhouse, is sitting in front of the locker of the alpha male of the team.

When Matt Kemp walks into the clubhouse from one of the back rooms, he finds Ramirez sitting in his chair, Ramirez exploring his belongings and Ramirez’s stuff in his locker.

“What is this (expletive)?” Kemp yells, loud enough for the entire clubhouse to take notice over the Rick Ross song blaring from Kemp’s iPod dock. Ramirez quickly darts out of the way, and for a moment, balance is restored.

Kemp is the man here. He rules ahead of the often too-quiet Adrian Gonzalez, the once-every-fifth-day Clayton Kershaw, the to-himself Andre Ethier and the inconsistent Ramirez. That status would have never been realistic at this time two years ago.

Then, Kemp was seen as a problem child. He was coming off a tumultuous 2010 season in which then-manager Joe Torre, general manager Ned Colletti and other coaches criticized him publicly. His very public relationship with pop star Rihanna was at the center of why Kemp wasn’t producing the kinds of numbers expected of him.

What no one knew at the time was that Kemp had rededicated himself to his craft. He vowed to not let anyone in his organization criticize him again. He called it quits with Rihanna. He was on a mission to be the best player in the National League. And he damn near was.

Kemp produced MVP-caliber stats in 2011, but because the Dodgers fell out of the playoff race, he didn’t get enough votes to upend Ryan Braun for the award, even though Braun himself admitted Kemp had the better season.

Kemp also emerged as one of the team’s leaders. He was vocal, he led by example and he wore the team’s failures in the press.

Last season, Kemp busted out of the starting blocks and was labeled the best all-around player in baseball. Then the injuries hit. First a hamstring, then another hamstring and then a devastating shoulder injury in the second half.

The Dodgers finished the season 17-15, not good enough to get them into the playoffs. Kemp was limited to 106 games after playing in no fewer than 155 in the previous four.

“The injuries, man,” Kemp said as his eyes rolled up and gazed toward the ceiling. “I’m not making excuses. I’m not going to not play how I play. I can’t. That’s not me. But I’m lighter now, so maybe that will help.”

How it might is unknown, but Kemp is certainly lighter. He says his 6-foot-4 frame is carrying 213 pounds, about the same amount as it did before that 2011 season, and about a dozen less than the 225 or so he carried a year ago.

“Maybe if I gain 10 pounds, I can hit 10 more home runs,” Kemp figured last year. He even predicted a 50-home run, 50-steals season last spring. He says he meant that as a joke, but “you guys ran with it,” he said, referring to the media.

“This year I’m not making any types of predictions,” he said.

“That’s not what you were telling me on the field earlier,” Gonzalez said from about 10 feet away. Laughter erupted from Kemp, the assembled media and Gonzalez.

“He’s a liar!” Kemp shouted.

Ramirez sitting in Kemp’s locker; Kemp finding Ramirez’s shoes and phone in said locker, then throwing them at the shortstop; Gonzalez poking at Kemp’s non-prediction—that's the kind of “chemistry” people said the Dodgers lacked last season. That deficiency, the thinking goes, is why the hitters didn’t hit and the team sat home for a third consecutive October.

That’s a poor assessment. It wasn’t chemistry the Dodgers lacked—it was Kemp.

After he crashed into the outfield wall in Colorado on Aug. 27, Kemp hit .214/.273/.420 with six home runs and 15 RBIs in his final 29 games. He was a shell of the player he had become and who the Dodgers were accustomed to having as their lineup’s anchor.

It wasn’t that the Dodgers weren’t friendly with each other or that they didn’t joke enough or go out to dinner with each other after games. To think so is stupid. That isn’t what wins games. It’s production. Plain. Simple.

Kemp, when healthy, produces. He helps win games. And his leadership could very well galvanize a team needing a head atop its body. The Dodgers are his team. He is the star among stars. If he plays as such, the Dodgers can live up to the expectations their record payroll has created.